Well, HTC messed up its launch of the best Android device of 2012 by only releasing it on AT&T. While the One X was a fantastic phone, its variants on T-Mobile and Sprint left much to be desired and it didn't even come out on Verizon.

As reported by Eva Dou at the Wall Street Journal, one way for HTC to get out of this mess would be to merge with another device manufacturer. Analysts suggest Chinese companies like Huawei or Lenovo as the best options, but those mergers will almost certainly never happen due to the political problems between China and HTC's home country of Taiwan.

But besides that, why would anyone want to merge with HTC? Eva suggests that a company might invest in HTC for its brand, but that doesn't make much sense when the brand in question is utterly failing.

Every single indicator for HTC's performance is trending downward. Via Benedict Evans, here's its revenue over time: